In Billboard‘s series “How It Went Down,” Charli XCX discussed how exactly she got basically almost every single boy in her latest music video for “Boys.”
“This idea popped into my head of all these guys being really sexy,” the British singer explains. The first boy on her list? Joe Jonas. Charli had this thought of Jonas “eating really sexily, which is a weird thought for me to be thinking — sorry, Joe.” That initial image sent Charli into a tailspin of a bunch of different guys doing a bunch of different sexy things. “I basically wanted to hit up as many people as possible,” she says.
She texted Diplo and then asked her new neighbor, Flume, as well. And so on and so on.
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The concept of the video was to take these stereotypes, often put on women in music videos and movies and have men act them out instead. “I basically wanted to flip the male gaze on its head,” she admits.
The other goal for “Boys” was to create a “next level pop video” that was a ton of fun. Mission accomplished. Revisit the video below.